In Truth, It Was I Who Was Betrayed

Over the week, I’ve watched this cinematic from 2017 World of Warcraft: Legion several times. Each time, the same question came through: Why? 

Why would Illidan Stormrage reject the gift of being made whole, of being redeemed, of being welcomed to the fold again?

A familiar feeling would come soon after: I want that. Very much. Who wouldn’t?

The gift was the restoration of Illidan’s night elf form, the eyes he sacrificed long ago. But it was also belonging, to be made legible, to be accepted and returned to the community from which he had been exiled. The gift is readmission.

But Illidan refuses. The refusal is explosive and final. A part of me feels it intently as loss, even though the writing frames it as integrity. 

If I had been Illidan, I don’t think I would’ve refused. At least not right away. I want to belong. I long to be embraced by my profession, my institution, my colleagues. In my heart of hearts, I still want to be seen by the people I work with. To be esteemed. I don’t just understand this intellectually. This desire is at the core of my current feeling of loneliness.

In Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, Illidan says, “Betrayer…in truth, it was I who was betrayed.” It is a statement worth pondering. The betrayal precedes the rejection of the gift. The refusal is only possible because the wound is that old and that settled. He’s not refusing belonging outright. He’s refusing a belonging that came too late and asked him to forget the cost of its absence.

I know I am not there yet. Compared to Illidan’s wounds and the betrayal he suffered, mine are still fresh. I still feel the longing for belonging, to be made whole, to be seen, to be embraced. Right now, I find respite in the in-between spaces moving between anger and acceptance.

What would it mean to be offered belonging that didn’t require forgetting what its absence cost?